


his hands so cold they shake

by plinys



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-01 21:19:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8638492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: A soul mate is meant to be a blessing, but Percival feels anything but blessed. 
Wounds from a soul bond won’t scar, they fade with time, leaving unblemished skin in their place. But it does not take the pain away - the welts that rise up against the palm of his hand till he can no longer hold his wand, the sensitive flesh of his back searing with each shift of his shoulders the heavy weight of a great coat suddenly too much all at once, the soft skin of his inner thighs bruised black and blue.





	

**Author's Note:**

> literally every halsey song fits this ship wtf.
> 
> I accidentally wrote a soul mate au. because I am weak for soul mate aus. This was originally supposed to be from Credence's pov, but I fucked up. If people are interested I may write the other side of this? like a companion piece? idk idk idk
> 
> Also this functions under the clearly something was going on between them before Grindelwald did the whole polyjuice potion thing, so uh, enjoy?
> 
> Unbeta'd because literally nobody sane that I usually go to for this stuff is into this sinful of a ship.

 

He remembers with clarity the first time it happens. 

A sudden searing pain in his hand that causes his quill to slip through his fingers, a curse falling from his lips as the pain seems to relent only for a brief moment before starting up again. His knuckles turn white with the pressure to keep his hand from shaking, hand tight in a fist, as though that will stem the pain away. It does no such thing. In fact the pain only seems to worse and he cannot help the small gasp that falls from his lips. 

Barely a hint above a whisper, but incredibly loud to his own ears.

Most of his fellow junior aurors pay him no mind, all too busy with the endless reports they’re forced to file in hopes of finally making it to a senior rank. Only the newest of their group Miss Porpentina seems to notice, her brows furrowing in confusion before she reaches down to pick up his quill for him. 

“You dropped this,” she says, voice still carrying that question note. 

He presses his palm against the cool table before she can notice. 

The metal like ice against his burning palm. 

*

Soul mates.

They were rare.

Rarer even than wizards themselves. 

There’d been a course on them at Ilvermony, a course that Percival hadn’t paid much attention to, writing the whole notion off. An unbreakable link between two wizards, forging in pain and desperation, two souls reaching towards each other through the very magic within their veins. 

It was the stuff out of romance novels, the sort of nonsense young witches got giddy over, pinching the inside of their wrist to see if the boy of their dreams blossomed a matching bruise. 

By the time the winter break had come and a new session of school had started the myth of a soul mates had been forgotten. 

Finding the old textbook now seems like nothing short of a miracle. His hands still burns, no healing spell enough to stop the pain. In the end he had wrapped a cloth bandage around it if only to relieve the future pain of any accidental brushing - a weak attempt at fixing a problem, leaving him feeling more like a no-maj than a wizard on his status and skill.

The book opens to the page he wants with a careless flicker of his wrist, the long forgotten chapter still has notes written in the margins, a comment about Quidditch practice fills the bottom of page  _ 73  _ while page  _ 76  _ features a note in unfamiliar - but distinctly male - handwriting asking if he was going to be able to meet later that night. 

It’s not until he gets to page  _ 78  _ that he finds the answer he’s looking for, half hidden under a poorly drawn Pukwudgie -  _ The most common side effect of a soulbond is feeling the pain of one’s soul’s mate. Often soul mates may notice a headache or weakness of spirit when their soul mate is unhappy in mind, body, or spirit. However, some exhibit more obvious symptoms. A small handful of reported cases have shown one soul mate mirroring the injuries of another, especially when these injuries are obtained while under great duress _ . 

So there’s that.

*

He gets himself off that night, to the idea of a person, a person that belongs solely to him.

He pictures their features.

_ His  _ features.

*

It only happens more often going forward.

A soul mate is meant to be a blessing, but Percival feels anything but blessed. 

Wounds from a soul bond won’t scar, they fade with time, leaving unblemished skin in their place. But it does not take the pain away - the welts that rise up against the palm of his hand till he can no longer hold his wand, the sensitive flesh of his back searing with each shift of his shoulders the heavy weight of a great coat suddenly too much all at once, the soft skin of his inner thighs bruised black and blue. 

If the pain he feels is to be a fraction of what his soul mate feels, Percival can only imagine what she - no  _ he  _ \- must be suffering through.

The worse is the fine, like a brand against his ribs, fire burning such that he has to stop in the middle of a pursuit in order to duck into an alleyway. Certain that a rogue spell must have hit him, for what else could explain the pain that makes him nearly double over. His hands hurriedly push his coat aside, finger fumbling over the buttons of his shirt, until the cold air hits his flesh. A poor attempt to stem the pain.

It is only then, as he seems the red begin to blossom against his ribs, the sensation feeling familiar rather than forging, that he finally looks up realizing he is not alone in the alley.

“Porpentina. You should be pursuing-”

“Heathcliff's got it. You’re hurt.”

She’s not asking him a question. She knows.

He waves a hand over his form, allowing his magic to put his clothing back in order. Meeting her concerned stare straight on rather than ducking his head away, he speaks, “It is nothing to concern yourself with.”

Porpentina always had a way of butting her head in places that it shouldn’t be. A useful habit for an auror, if it weren’t  _ his  _ business that she was butting into.

“Is it your soul mate?”

“You don’t honestly believe those stories.”

This time the look of concern flashes to something else entirely. 

He imagines he deserves as much. 

“I have one too,” she says, sounding only just the hint angry with him. Though she pushes up the sleeve of her coat nevertheless. Purple mouth shaped bruises cover the inside of her arm. “My soulmate keeps getting bitten, by who knows what.”

“Another lover,” Percival suggests, if only to get her to drop the topic.

It earns him an annoyed look, but not a disapparating fellow auror. 

“Honestly, where’s your sense of romance?”

*

Grindelwald has a different idea about soul mates. 

None of the romantic notions his coworker had attempted to put into his mind.

Or the equilateral bond his textbooks had mentioned. 

Rather Grindelwald told him the  _ truth  _ of a soulmate, spoken as one show shared a similar fate, but had used this power for the betterment of wizard kind.

Easy to manipulate.

A source through which power can be drawn. 

He tells Percival this once he has reached the inner circle of Grindelwald’s followers. The man’s near white eyes, examining the bruised flesh along the back of Percival’s hand. Grindelwald’s fingers are too cold, like ice as they trace the newest of the bruises, a wicked purple thing that had appeared suddenly during their last meeting.

“Find them, and use them,” Grindelwald tells him, a command rather than a request.

Before apparating away. 

*

Finding his soulmate is not an easy task. 

Between juggling his work as an auror with his duties to Grindelwald - he was left no time at all to search the streets of the city (for if nothing else Percival was certain his soul mate was in New York, a heavy weight inside of him that only felt lighter when he was in the city assured him of their proximity).

So when the accident occurred he almost felt  _ blessed _ .

Almost.

Until he saw the youth in the boy’s features. He could maybe be twenty, but could quite certainly be less. Ten years he had felt this boy’s pain, but only now at an accidental touch did he feel something else - his soul reaching out through him to touch it’s inevitable match. 

Percival cannot help but observe him. 

There’s a soft roundness to his cheeks, marred only slightly by the bruise high up on his cheekbone. The bruise that had been landed upon Percival’s own face only mere hours before when a witch they had been taking in decided to give one last ditch attempt at escape and punch him in the face. 

He had to give her credit for trying.

Perhaps even a thanks now, as he recognized the same mark - the cut from her ring - upon the boy’s face.

They had bumped into each other in the street, an accident caused by Percival being in too much of a rush to pay attention to where he was going. An accident that caused the boy to skin his hand on the mismatched cobblestones of the street, an injury that Percival could already feel being mirrored on his own hand.

The boy stumbles through something like an apology, tripping over each word in a way that is more annoying than endearing. Shoulders hunched forward in on himself. 

His soul mate is not a particularly noteworthy creature, and for all the hint of magic Percival feels through their bond nothing outwardly seems to manifest itself. A feeling akin to disappointment bubbles up within him, even as he sinks down to help the boy - his  _ soul mate _ \- with the fliers that had fallen from his hands. 

Once he has straightened up, the boy still apologizing, Percival glances at the leaflets, and feels his disappointment only grown.

“Your one of those Salem children,” he says, unable to disguise his tone, to censor himself. 

The boy is used to this sort of reaction, he keeps his head ducked, eyes locked onto the ground. 

His voice is barely more than a murmur as he says, “Please take a leaflet, t-there’s everything you need to know on the paper. Allow God to bring us all back into the light.” 

*

The boy’s name is Credence.

Credence Barebone. 

A terribly unfortunate name, from a terribly unfortunate family. 

And a squib, on top of that.

Disappointment tastes bitter in his mouth. 

Not even a glass of brandy can steal the taste away. 

*

“Tell me about him,” his sister says, pressing her fingers against the bruise along his cheekbone. 

It doesn’t hurt. Not for Percival. 

More of an inconvenience. 

He brushes Jordan’s hand away, and she moves carelessly back the couch she had been lounging on when the bruise first appeared on his face. Her flute of champagne still hovering in the air where she had left it moment before. Jordan seems bored, a strand of pearls that had been woven into her hair, slipping down her shoulder as she settles back down, but still she prompts him for conversation.

“Perce, tell me about your man. You have met him yes?”

He doesn’t find her on the childhood nickname, though he would much like to. His sister was like that, annoying in her best moments. She knew almost all of his secrets, enough to know that the gender of his soul mate without even a question in her town.

He and Jordan were similar in this way. 

“Yes,” Percival finally answer.

This registers a brief flicker of interest in his sister, before her features school back into boredom.

She arches an eyebrow as if to say  _ and _ .

“We met once in passing.”

“Did he not,” she trails off, voice falling silent with an unspoken question, “Was he already with a woman?”

“No - Merlin! It’s not. That’s not the issue.”

“Ah, but there is an issue, Perce, isn’t there?”

There’s plenty of issues. He could make a list of them that would span at least three sheets of parchment. In fact, that very list sat on the desk in his study, blotted out with ink, hand writing nearly too mess for even himself to read. There was a letter to Grindelwald beside it, a letter that Percival would almost certainly not be sending. Admitting his failed hand to himself had been hard enough, to do so to the one that would inevitably lead wizard kind to their rightful place at the head of the world would be even worse.

If he was being honest with himself, he would be forced to admit that Grindelwald would find out one way or another. 

Admitting the truth of his misfortunes to his sister Jordan felt like nothing in comparison.

Percival takes a long drink of his brandy before answering, “He’s a squib.”

“Unfortunate.”

*

There’s a cafe two doors down from the church. A place that, were it not for its proximity to his soul mate’s daily route, Percival would never frequent. The No-Maj that runs the coffee shop makes a weak drink, and offers dry pastries in return. But there is a table by the window where Percival has claims every lunch break he can manage, that allows him the perfect vantage point for the front of the church. 

His eyes linger there now, watching the door swing open, a young woman darting out - the sister,  _ Chastity _ \- with a bell in her hand. 

They move constantly like clock work.

Such that Percival can easily manage his life around moments like this, glimpses of the boy - because someone as slip thin as that can’t be considered a man - that is meant to be the other hand of his soul.

It takes him two months of this to finally do something, and even then it’s a mistake.

There’s a burning in his chest that comes not from his soul mate, but from the summons of his  _ master _ . The pendant against his chest that serves as a link to his fellow believers, burns in a summons. He leaves the cafe in a haste, a sudden flurry of his coat, the book he had been pretending to read abandoned on the table.

He runs into the boy again. Into his soul mate. Because this is how the fate of the universe works.

“Oh for Merlin’s sake.”

It would figure that the alley he uses to apparate and disapparate from happens to be the very one his soulmate goes to hide out in. 

There’s no fresh wounds marring his skin. 

Percival would be all too aware were that the case. 

“You.” 

The boy’s tone is weak, but accusatory. 

Unexpected. 

“Pardon me,” Percival says quickly intending to turn around and find a different alley to use to make his escape.

He’s stop by a voice that seems too bold for the figure before him. Perhaps there is something stronger inside of him after all. 

“I’ve seen you watching the church. What do you want from us?”

Disapparating in front of a No-Maj is a criminal offense, but his soul mate isn’t a No-Maj, not even if he’s been raised as one. And there’s no answer that Percival could have given quickly enough. 

*

In the end, he can blame it all on Porpentina. Her foolishness leading to him pointing a wand at his soul mate’s head with orders to obliviate him. 

“Please,” the boy begs, desperation bleeding into his voice. “Please, I won’t tell. I won’t.”

Maybe it is weakness inside of him, the weakness harbored in his soul, but as he watches the boy shake with fear, tears streaming down his face - with the desire not to lose one of the few bits of himself that remains - he cannot do it. His wand hand shakes with the fear shared between their bond. 

The wand falling limp from his fingers, clattering on the ground without him able to stop it. 

Too late. 

“My name is Percival Graves. I work for the Magical Congress of the United States of America, with the woman that just attacked your mother. Now just take deep breath, this will all be over soon. Won’t hurt a bit.” 

*

He had dreams sometimes.

Nightmares.

Visions.

Never anything pleasant.

He’d had a divination teacher back at Ilvermorny who had seen his as a sign that great things were to come for him. She’d had him stare into tea cups for hours on end, looking at the leaves that remained as though there might be a sign of good things to come.

(In the end, he always put the pieces together too late.) 

These dreams are bad enough that he can’t help but feel them to be visions. A darkness that seems to consume his very being. Twisting his flesh into a void. Hands shaking until they are no longer hands, but wisps of smoke, reaching for the sky with a viciousness that leaves him retching upon waking.

*

“There is darkness inside of you, Perce.” 

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

*

“You’re a witch.”

Meeting Credence again seems like a mistake, but he finds him there in the alley again, and again and it becomes a conscious decision to do so. As if he is drawn to this alley, to this boy. His own traitorous soul. 

“Technically, I’m a  _ wizard _ ,” Percival corrects. “Does that frighten you?”

Credence is crouched in the alley across from him. Hunched forward, closing in on himself. This is a common position for him. 

“No,” he eventually says. 

Though he does not sound entirely certain. 

“It should.” 

At this Credence’s eyes to flick up to meet his own. He has been looking more pale lately, dark circles under his eyes, as though he is not getting enough sleep. Percival knows that feeling all too well. Though he imagines for entirely different reasons.

It is those eyes that meet his and for a moment, Percival feels the darkness that has been too long inside of him, finding it’s twin. 

He speaks without thinking, touching upon the one topic he had been purposely avoiding in all of their accidental meetings before. 

“Does your  _ religion  _ ever mention the concept of a soul mate.” 

Credence’s brows knit together at the change of topic. 

“Mostly Ma talks about witches.”

“Yes, but during other times,” Percival pushes. “Do they ever talk of two men being together and-”

If he had thought Credence’s face was pale before, it goes shades more now. White as a sheet, or a ghost. 

“Sodomy is a sin, sir.” 

It’s with a cruel twist of his lips that he says, “Like witch craft,” just before disapparating. 

*

He kisses the boy simply because he can.

Because it is his  _ right _ , to do so. 

Because it feels right, to do so.

Credence is pliant beneath his hands, virgin unsure, shaking underneath his hands, as he allows himself to be pressed back against the alleyway wall. So easy to push around, to move into position. So eager to please, desperate for some sign of approval.

If sodomy is a sin. 

Then he’d commit a thousand more.

* 

The dreams only get worse after that.

*

“Is it a vision then, Graves, is that what you’re telling me?”

“I don’t know, sir.” 

Admitting this is somehow worse than having never said anything at all. Asking for Grindelwald’s time was unheard of, followers such as himself - even those who were lucky enough to have reached the inner circle - did not ask the master for a meeting. They waited to be summoned as all loyal followers should.

Percival should have waited, but the last dream was too much.

He’d seen the woman - Credence’s mother, her hand on the shoulder of a child. The swirling mass of darkness, the smoke heavy in the wind. Power so immense that there was no denying that it had been real. This was more than a dream. 

“If this child is what you are describing, they must be brought to me.”

“I don’t know which child is is,” Percival confesses. Bracing for impact. For the cruciatus curse that inevitably comes. For a second his mind is nothing but pain, endless pain. A sensation that is so familiar to him and yet still brings him to his knees. 

It lets up what feels both like an eternity and like a moment later.

He gasps for breath. 

Each one drawing weakly into his lungs.

One.

Two.

Three.

“My soul mate has a connection to the woman. He will help me find the child, together we will bring them to you. This I swear.”

Grindelwald’s voice is low, sinking into every fiber of his being, as he crouches down towards the ground where Percival still lies. 

“Tell me, what will you swear it upon?”

*

“I felt it. Felt you. You were hurting.

“Don’t,” he brushes Credence’s hands away.

What a twist of fate is this? The reversal of their roles. Where it is Credence offering him comfort.

The boy does not know how to comfort people, he’s not experience with it. But he leans into Percival as though that will soothe the ache within him. Clutches at his robes with desperation. 

“Mr. Graves, what can I do to ease your pain?” 

“There is nothing,” he says. Even though it is a lie. Even though he will inevitably need to give the task to the boy. Even though with each second a moment of their time slips away.

Tonight, he will allow himself one last night of freedom from his duties. 

When the boy sinks to his knees with an easy familiarity, Percival allows himself this. Allows his hands to curl into the boy’s hair holding him in place. Allows his hips to jerk forward to take and take and take. Allows time to pause if only for a moment. 

*

“Can you teach me to do magic as you do?”

“Find me the child, and I’ll teach you anything.”

*

“You’re up to something.”

“You’re not supposed to be on this floor.” 

Porpentine wrinkles her nose at him. Though she does not leave the floor. Instead she leans against the edge of his desk, tracing her fingers along the map pined down to it. Searching for something or another.

He does not have the time for this, does not have the time for her.

Not when he’s scheduled to meet both Grindelwald and Credence tonight.

He’d see the boy first, a quick moment. An update that he would deliver to Grindelwald that evening. 

His time dwindling with each passing moment, and yet slipping away would only rouse more suspicion. He had already had to push back a meeting due to an urgent message from the President after some _ thing  _ ripped a hole in the side of a No-Maj apartment building. 

“What do you think it is?”

“You know I can’t tell you that, this is a classified case, aurors only.”

“I used to-”

“That’s right, Porpentina,  _ used to _ .” 

Her faces goes splotchy, red splatting among her cheekbones. 

“Do you think it’s a beast?” 

A beast.

No a child. 

An obscurial. 

“I haven’t the slightest of clues.”

*

He cups his hand around the back of Credence’s neck, pulling his soul mate towards him. He’s shaking like a leaf in the wind. Nothing 

“It’s just one child, Credence, how hard can it be?”

“I’ve tried, Mr. Graves, I keep trying - what if, I don’t find the child? What if-”

“You must.” 

Percival cannot afford to think of the alternative. As it is he is already on borrowed time. Already pushing back, stealing moments, that Grindelwald has been far too generous to allow him to have so far. Time is not an infinite thing, and Percival is all too aware of what happens to people that do not fulfill their duties. 

His own death would be nothing to fear.

Were it not for the inevitability that his soul mate would feel it.

Have they both not suffered enough.

“You will find the child only then can we be together away from here, don’t you want that?”

“Please, please,” Credence says. 

Initiating a kiss for the first time.

For the last time.

Pressing up on his toes, to bring their lips together. 

“Please.”

*

“Now, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.” 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr, @ plinys


End file.
